A variety of tools exists to help designers when laying out and creating semiconductor circuits. For instance, certain tools allow a designer to connect logic blocks and determine simulated electrical circuitry into which the logic blocks are placed. These tools can also perform layout of the simulated electrical circuitry to create simulated semiconductor circuits and perform simulation using the simulated semiconductor circuits. Additional tools can convert a schematic of the simulated semiconductor circuits into information used during processing to manufacture a semiconductor circuit.
In the past, tools mainly considered design parameters for a simulated semiconductor circuit. Such design parameters included, for instance, length for interconnects, thickness of interconnects, cross-section of interconnects, thickness of metal or insulating layers, properties of materials used for metal or insulating layers, and the like. The design parameters were used during analysis of a simulated semiconductor circuit to determine output parameters such as electrical parameters (e.g., resistance and capacitance) of interconnects in the simulated semiconductor circuit or performance parameters (e.g., delay, transition time, power, area, crosstalk) of interconnects in the simulated semiconductor circuit. These analyses proved helpful, especially as power requirements kept decreasing but speed requirements kept increasing. Furthermore, testing of semiconductor circuits were performed to determine how well the analysis of simulated semiconductor circuits agreed with data from the semiconductor circuits.
Recently, new tools have been developed that not only analyze design parameters for a semiconductor circuit but also analyze certain process parameters for the processes able to manufacture the semiconductor circuit. Such process parameters, e.g., as via thickness, dielectric constants, metal thickness, and the like, can influence the operation of the semiconductor circuit. Thus, not only can design parameters be used during analysis of a semiconductor circuit, but certain process parameters may also be taken into account during analysis of a semiconductor circuit.
While such tools used for analysis provide benefits, additional benefits could be realized if the tools had certain improvements.